The Place That Was Once Home
by Whisper's Song
Summary: Pam packs up the apartment she shared with Roy after calling off the wedding and reflects on their relationship. Set the summer after Season 2, but before Jim officially transfers branches. What the cameras didn’t capture!


**The Place That Was Once Home**

**By:** Whisper's Song

**Summary:** Pam packs up the apartment she shared with Roy after calling off the wedding and reflects on their relationship. Set the summer after Season 2, but before Jim officially transfers branches. What the cameras didn't capture!

**Author's Note:** Thank you for reading/reviewing! By the way I don't own anything of The Office show/brand. I'm just merely borrowing characters and situations. It all belongs to NBC.

* * *

She looks at the apartment. For the first time she really looks at the apartment that has served as home for the past three years. The wallpaper peels a little in the corners and the paint has somewhat faded. The window in the bedroom doesn't open all the way anymore and the furniture needs to be replaced. There's some water damage from the apartment above in the kitchen and the carpet needs a good deep cleaning. It seems the place has lost its charm and doesn't instill the excitement she felt when she had first seen it. Back then she was newly engaged to Roy and everything seemed a little brighter, as it always does when an engagement happens. She thought this apartment would be temporary. After an acceptable engagement period she assumed that she and Roy would marry and then buy a real house. Until then this apartment would be home. Those first few months had been really good, she remembers. They were on their own for the first time, engaged, and the future seemed so bright then. She proudly showed off the apartment to all her friends. She had used her artistic eye to make sure that even though the furniture, while inexpensive, all coordinated together to look presentable despite the price tag.

Things were good for a while. She was able to ignore the things about Roy that upset her because she still had the engagement ring. If he didn't really love her then he would've taken the ring back she had convinced herself then. There were few and far between glimmers of hope in their relationship when Roy was the boy she had met in high school and she knew why she agreed to marry him. Despite what her friends or parents said, she reminded herself of this and continued to live with Roy.

Things then got routine: waking up, breakfast, work, dinner, and then whatever Roy wanted to do. She figured all couples got to this stage where the excitement of young love would fade because there were more responsibilities now. People couldn't just live in a state of being a young adult forever. Things would be in a comfortable routine where love was assumed and not expressed. Despite a convincing rational argument she couldn't help but feel sad. She didn't want to become her parents, but maybe it just couldn't be avoided.

Then a wedding date could never be pinned down. She was worried but she was able to convince herself it was logical. They obviously didn't have enough money to get married properly so he must've been waiting for them to have enough money. One year turned to two and then three. She watched most of her friends tie the knot with eager questions about her own wedding which she avoided at all costs. She watched Roy accept the award for Longest Engagement with enthusiasm, even saying he would see everyone there next year.

Everyone had told her to dump Roy after this, that their relationship was going nowhere after such a long engagement, that is until he announced a wedding date on the Booze Cruise. She and everyone else had so much hope that things would get better and that a wedding would happen. As she began to plan, he didn't object or take back what he had said, and she was ecstatic that after all this time it was going to happen. She was so happy at first but she progressively started to feel less happy about the impending situation, probably starting with Jim saying he couldn't come to the wedding. He was her best friend and she wanted him there more than anything. He was the person who made her laugh like no one else could, that would always buy her French Onion chips, and cheer her up when Michael made an insensitive comment. He was the reason she came to work. If he didn't come then what was the point of having the wedding?

It was the kiss that had changed everything. She couldn't deny it anymore, she had feelings for Jim. She wanted nothing more but to continue kissing him, but she had made a promise to Roy first. She had given him her word and would be good for it. There was so much history with Roy that to just start over seemed so daunting, especially on someone who it wasn't a guarantee that she would be with him forever. She knew that while Roy wasn't perfect, he definitely wanted to spend the rest of his life with her. So she pushed Jim away. She now wonders if that was a mistake.

According to the clock she's been able to get everything packed in four short hours. She's glad Roy decided to use the tickets they had bought for the honeymoon because she could pack up and move out without a big scene and in less time. She was never one for confrontations and was glad that by the time he returned she would be moved out and it would be clean break.

She puts her apartment key on the counter for Roy to have as a spare because she knew he always lost keys easily. Smiling slightly at a memory of being locked out of his car in the pouring rain and then having to take shelter under a tree, she remembers that he had kissed her in that moment and it was perfect. It was those moments of a high school romance that she remembers fondly. Unfortunately the boy she had fallen in love with then no longer existed, or might've been a smoke screen of what she wanted to see. She then pulls out a velvet black box and with the completion of this move she would officially be free to start over. Pulling off the engagement ring she examines it closer. It is a pretty ring she admits to herself. For a pretty ring the proposal had been lackluster in retrospect. They were sitting on a couch at her parents' house and he had just casually asked if she wanted to get married. She realizes now he probably was joking, but she had taken it seriously. Most likely he just went along with the idea of marriage and got her the ring to satisfy her, thinking if she had a ring he could put off an actual ceremony. She now likes to think he wanted to fall in love with the idea of marrying her, that he really made an effort, but in the end he couldn't force himself to do something he didn't actually want. The skin on her fourth finger is uneven because of the presence of a ring for so long has made a tan line. It's a reminder of what her life could've been and a reminder of what she doesn't want her life to ever be. Eventually it'll fade, she tells herself, and she feels a bit better. Setting the ring into the box she places it next to the key. The boxes are packed in the truck and all that's left to go is her. The place looks like a ghost apartment without her influence anymore. She finds it an ironic and fitting symbol of the relationship because she had always put more into the relationship than Roy would ever know.

She can remember how the kitchen looked and the one time Roy had helped her to cook only for it to be a disaster. They had laughed on the floor for such a long time before ordering pizza. She can remember the way he had lifted her over the threshold and had kissed her until she couldn't breathe. She can remember how the living room looked and how she stayed up all night waiting for him to come home from a bar or party while crying her eyes out. She also knows the spot in their bedroom, in front of mirror that was above the dresser, two days before her wedding when she realized marrying Roy would be the biggest mistake of her life.

Wiping the tears that had collected in her eyes after three years worth of making memories in this place, she knew it was time to move on. It will be the challenge of her life to leave behind eight years worth of memories, kisses, firsts, experiences, heartache, fighting, making up, laughter, despair, and lessons but it has to be done. Taking a deep breath she pulls herself together to get to the door. She takes one last look at the place that was once home and shuts the door to her past and walks towards her future.


End file.
